When to Use?
Announcements are an ideal way to post time-sensitive information critical to course success. Unlike messages, new announcements appear immediately when a student opens a course. Students are less likely to ignore the information you share in a course announcement because it demands attention before viewing the course content. When you add an announcement, you can also send it as an email to students in your course. Students receive the announcement even if they don't log into your course.
Procedure
Create an Announcement
1. In the top-level navigation in your course, select Announcements.
2. At the top right corner of the Course Announcement page, select the Create Announcement plus sign ( + ) icon. If this is the first announcement in the course, a new announcement will open automatically.
3. On the New Announcement page, in the Title field, enter a descriptive title for your announcement. (NOTE: The title has a 256-character limit)
4. In the Message text box, enter the information you want to send to students. Optionally, use the toolbar in the message editor to format text, embed multimedia, and attach files.
(NOTE: You can now immediately post announcements. See the below image.)
5. You can use the Send an email copy to recipients for critical announcements (e.g. class cancellations). Students will receive emails at the address associated with their Blackboard account, even if they don’t log into the course.
6. Use the Schedule Announcement if you want the announcement to be posted or visible for a specific time and date.
7. Once you have finished putting together your announcement, click Save. Your announcement is now saved as a draft on your Course Announcements page. You also have an option to post the announcement right away instead of saving it to post later. This is an update to the announcements feature, which required an announcement to be saved first before posting.
8. To post your announcement immediately, select Post Now. If you scheduled your announcement to show on a future date, Blackboard will automatically post the announcement at the scheduled time and date. (Note: The Post Now button will be greyed out until the course is made visible to students. The course must be available to students in order to post announcements.)
- If an announcement is posted while checking the "Send an email copy to recipients" check box, an email copy of the announcement will be sent immediately.
- If an announcement is posted while checking the “Schedule announcement” check box, an email copy of the announcement will be sent immediately.
- If an announcement is posted, without checking extra boxes there is no immediate email copy, but an email copy comes through within 15 – 20 minutes.
Reschedule Announcements
Instructors can reschedule announcements without having to recreate them. They can do this by changing the Show On and Hide After fields to a future date. When students first enter a course, the rescheduled announcement will trigger another pop-up.
- In your Ultra course, click Announcements found under the Details & Actions menu.
- Click the 3-dots to the right of the Announcement you want to reschedule. Click Edit.
You can now make changes to the announcement message if necessary. Under Schedule Announcement, update the date/time settings to when you would like to show the announcement to students again. Click Save.
Announcement Indicators and Mark Announcements as Read/Unread
There is a number indicator next to the announcement tab in the course. The indicator signals the number of unread announcements available.
Additionally, users can now mark announcements as read or unread. On the New Course Announcement pop-up, users have the option to mark the read state. Users can also mark announcements as read or unread from the Announcement page.
Image 1. Number of unread Announcements next to the Announcement tab
Image 2. Announcements pop-up with the option to mark as read/unread
Image 3. Announcements page with the option to mark as read/unread
See also: Blackboard Help - Announcements